“Generation Cryo” (1.1) recap: The DNA Went Down to Georgia

Reno, Nevada. 17-year-old Breeanna sits in her room, talking to a video camera. A lesbian herself, Bree has been raised by two lesbian moms. The invisible face behind the camera that she imagines she’s talking to? Her anonymous sperm donor that helped bring her into existence. While the whole finding-your-sperm-donor storyline can sometimes offensively be portrayed in a negative light, a tale of unsatisfied kids searching for a parental role that’s missing in their life, Breeanna seems remarkably…happy. “I’m so appreciative of my life and where it’s going. And…I want to find you.” Why wouldn’t you be happy, with moms who dressed in rad matching sweatshirts?

Bree soon lays out her plan: She’s found an amazing world of half-siblings through a website called Donor Sibling Registry. Two of them are named Hilit and Jonah and live in Atlanta, Georgia, and they have invited her to come and meet them in person. After doing some research, Bree has found that DNA parental matches work best with the DNA from a boy, because science. If Jonah seems okay with it, she’s going to ask him to swab his cheek while she’s down there. She Skypes with Jonah and Hilit before her trip, introducing them to her best friend Cathy, who is adorable, and asking if she needs to bring along any nice clothes, along with other nervous chit chat. Hilit says nah, just dress “how you do.” “How I do? Umm, OK. I have a lot of sweaters.” Bree, a lesbian through and through.

We then see Bree head off to work at a yogurt shop, where another friend, Patti, stops by. Patti is clearly amazing and my teenage self is already jealous of Bree’s friends. Bree lays out her plan to Patti and another co-worker, and they spend a couple hilarious moments debating how the DNA test works. The co-worker thinks you pee on it. Patti says you just stick it in his penis.

There’s still one obstacle before all this happens, though: running it by the moms. Bree’s parents are now separated, and she shares that she’s going to be meeting with them tomorrow at the “same damn time.” Patti and the co-worker react in the way that you know this doesn’t happen often. Bree asks if they think that both of them will be cool with it, to which Patti shakes her head, saying that she imagines at least one of them, probably Sherry, will get their feelings hurt. Bree clarifies that she doesn’t view the donor as a parent, “at all.” She views her family’s whole experience as “a Wizard of Oz type thing.” And that even if the guy waiting at the end of the yellow brick road turned out to be “just some dumbass,” it was still a journey that her moms had to take, and one that she wants to find out more about. She tells Patti that maybe she’ll be able to explain it better after she finally meets him. It’s at the moment that Bree refers to her potential sperm donor as “just some dumbass” that I know that I really like Bree.